


Short and Sweet

by youhavewings



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 02:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11818875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youhavewings/pseuds/youhavewings
Summary: A collection of Nu'est drabbles (mostly Dongho, Jonghyun or Jbaek-centric).1: The first time Baekho met JR, he didn't quite know what to make of him.2: There's a very specific reason why Dongho pulls himself together after the initial rankings on Produce 101.3: Dongho and Jonghyun are an oddball pair in the eyes of their classmates.4: In which Baekho is clingy and JR doesn't quite know what to make of him.5 & 6: On death, grief and regrets. Baekho x JR H/C.7: Gratitude is not as simple as it once was for JR.8: Jieqiong is a force to be reckoned with from the day Dongho meets her.9: Dongho has never quite learned that not leaning back is a form of selfishness.10: Dongho’s crush on Jonghyun is old ...11: Jonghyun goes looking for Dongho the night before the PD101 finale and figures things out with little time to spare. (Written for the prompt "words".)12: Jonghyun's made a bit of a habit out of picking Dongho up at the airport.





	1. Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Baekho met JR he didn't quite know what to make of him ...

Dongho's first memory of Jonghyun is complicated.

He goes into Pledis with his back steeled for ragging, for being made to do all chores, for being pranked during his first few months, and all the other nonsense that's bound to come with being the rookie. It will be a little humiliating and hard to swallow - Dongho's used to being the sunbae and the prodigy. But he's starting over, he reminds himself. Idol trainees are hardly going to care that he's a kumdo black belt and a world champion, he has to grin and bear it until he proves himself again.

Dongho is not sure what to expect out of his first practice session at an idol agency but the spare practice room that echoes slightly with each footstep is underwhelming. There is no one in it but a scrawny trainee going through his stretches with an envious grace. Dongho is definitely not prepared for the trainee to jump nearly a mile high when he clears his throat.

Dongho relaxes a little when he finds out that Jonghyun is the same age and the only other male trainee, Minki is in their school year as well. 

By the end of the session, when he's doubled over hard trying to catch his breath and attempting not to throw up, Dongho realises he might hate Jonghyun. Because Dongho might be a natural athlete with his quick reflexes and compact but powerful body, but Jonghyun moves with a grace and fluidity that he can't imagine matching. It burns to be so thoroughly outclassed.

He has to revise his impression of Jonghyun again when they're back at the dorms and seated on the sofa with Minki (despite fever bright eyes and a persistent cough, Minki is so bubbly and chatty that he almost makes up for Jonghyun's silence - it will take Dongho a while yet to realise that Minki is only overly garrulous when he's nervous). He's not expecting it when Jonghyun hands him an ice compress and directs him to keep it on his knee until the swelling goes down.

Dongho wants to protest that he's fine - he'd taken a sharp blow to that knee some summers ago when his protective gear had gotten twisted around during practice; it's never been the same since but he's learned to accommodate for it. He can bear a little pain.

But the explanation dies on Dongho's lips at the serious look in Jonghyun's eyes and the earnestness in his voice. 

"I'm sorry I didn't notice earlier, I'm really not used to having a team. Minki keeps reminding me to slow down, you will too if I'm going too fast, right?" 

The only thing Dongho could do really was to nod at that. Any anger he might have felt never has the chance to spark.

(He doesn't forget Jonghyun's kindness to a complete stranger though. And when he meets Hwang Minhyun a year and a half later, he makes sure to pass it on. They're a team now after all.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a very specific reason why Dongho pulls himself together after the initial rankings on Produce 101.

Dongho goes overnight from being a floundering, unfocused mess in classes to the pillar that his team of underdogs leans on for support and encouragement during the first task.

Guanlin in his darkest moments (all that fear and confusion in his eyes, frustration with himself, and suppressed ambition) reminds Dongho so much of Aron and Kyulkyung that he can't help but soften and try to coax the boy out of his shell. That's how Dongho picks up a personal shadow who calls him hyung and keeps piling him with snacks. It's a giddy feeling to be looked at with so much reverence and bittersweet - the last person to follow him around like an adopted puppy had been Sungyeon and she's long since lost the habit.

But Guanlin isn't the reason.

Dongho never tells anyone how he manages to pull himself together - his father calls him after the first episode and talking to him always steadies Dongho; Bumjoo turns up at his doorstep and drags him out for a good dinner on the pretense that he needs someone to eat with; he spends a (very long) evening right before they enter the Produce 101 camp again watching old performances and convincing himself of his reasons for doing this. Nu'est means too much and is far too much a part of him to even think about giving up at this stage.

It's only later, when so much has happened that it feels like he's lived an entire life twice over, that Dongho admits to himself that it was Jonghyun's agony (displayed on the monitor in his bedroom in HD and replayed over and over until he even dreams of it) at his complete failure, that got to him. He never wants to put that combination of pain, misery and helplessness on Jonghyun's face again.


	3. Unspoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dongho and Jonghyun are an oddball pair in the eyes of their classmates.

Dongho likes having Jonghyun as a classmate. Neither of them come from backgrounds privileged enough to afford private school and so, unlike their other fellows, they're shunted to the nearest public high that's willing to accommodate their schedules.

The commute from the dorms is long and often on public transport - it's nice to have someone to grab a late afternoon snack with, or to simply doze off on. It makes him remember similarly long rides to school with his brother and the other neighbourhood kids; and on the rare occasion that Jonghyun has a differing schedule, Dongho misses him terribly.

He knows their class considers them an oddball pair. Jonghyun is quiet and prone to using his class time to catch up on sleep while Dongho is excitable and friendly to a fault. They don't go to school enough for their absences to matter but most of the guys are at least friendly with Dongho - he plays soccer and basketball, and whatever else is the sport of the day with the boys, and helps out with class events whenever he can muster up the energy (and sometimes when he can't).

Jonghyun is the darling of the girls in the class but he barely notices it. He makes the acquaintance of a few of the other gamers, and Dongho's caught him texting them more than once during a boring train ride but for the most part Jonghyun drifts through school and only comes to life during training.

So it never makes sense to the other boys why Dongho always leaves with Jonghyun instead of hanging out with them. Dongho has never gone into the details either. He'd tried once and then stopped. "He's the leader," wouldn't make sense to any of them (and barely made any sense to him).

"We have to leave right after fifth period today, don't forget," Jonghyun tells him absently one day, nudging Dongho's shoulder as he walks past, his attention on the Gameboy in his hands. Dongho grunts in acknowledgement; he's watching the arm-wrestling game in front of him because he has money riding on the outcome.

"Do you even get along with him?" Hyunsik asks Dongho out of the blue later, when he's busy studying the snack board and trying to decide how to splurge his ill-gotten three dollars.

A lot of the boys shy away from Hyunsik because of his unpolished, blunt manner and hand me down clothes. But Dongho's never had an issue. He knows what it's like to go to school in shirts that are two sizes too big and shoes that were his father's first, and everyone in Aewol had been a whole lot more straight-forward than the people here in Seoul.

"Huh?" Dongho looks at him.

"You know, our resident pretty boy Jonghyun," the other boy's drawl is just a shade short of insulting and Dongho shifts uncomfortably. "You don't seem close to me, that's all."

It's a flippant remark made out of boredom so Dongho answers in kind. "We're fine," he just says with a shrug, doesn't bother explaining that yesterday he'd accidentally drooled on Jonghyun's shoulder (again) on the way home and Jonghyun had just flicked him on the forehead and made him wash the shirt as payback. Jonghyun hadn't even told the other trainees about it; there would have hell to pay at home for that.

(Minhyun's been laughing at him for a whole week now for falling asleep halfway through dinner.)

"I swear he nags at you more than my mum," another classmate chimes and Dongho bristles this time. (And really, what do these guys know about nagging when they’ve never met _Hwang Minhyun_. Minhyun is worse than both of Dongho’s parents put together.)

He stews about the remark the whole way home, so much so that Jonghyun eventually sighs and stops tapping away at his Gameboy to regard him.

"Did you beat your high score at last?" Dongho asks - he doesn't even know what Jonghyun is playing at the moment, the guy is ridiculously undiscriminating when it comes to games, but it's usually a sure-fire way to divert Jonghyun's attention.

"No, but I would have if a certain someone hadn't been sulking beside me," Jonghyun says exasperatedly.

"I'm not sulking! I just -" Dongho falters.

He's always suspected a little that between the favour shown by the girls in class, having a reputation for always toeing the line, and Jonghyun's penchant for paying more attention to pixels than actual people, some of their male classmates are a little less than fond of Jonghyun.

But he doesn't quite know how to approach the subject and what comes out instead is, "Some of the guys were going on today about how we don't seem close".

Jonghyun looks at him for a long second and Dongho fidgets, he's worried all of a sudden.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Jonghyun just says, and he looks genuinely confused. "I mean, you didn't want to be in the same class, right?"

"Huh?"

"You said it was hard being with me all the time, even at school," Jonghyun points out. _He's_ the one sounding sulky now, Dongho thinks pettily.

Dongho opens his mouth and then snaps it shut guiltily. Because he _had_ said it, back when they'd first started and he’d been more than a little upset that Minhyun would be going to a different high school.

"I didn't mean it, I swear. I’m sorry," Dongho apologises almost out of habit. He’s always blurting out stuff like this.

"Really? I guess, that's good," Jonghyun shrugs. "You should do the history project with me then. We have that performance in Busan next week and it's going to be hard if we pair up with other people."

Dongho just nods mutely, belatedly realizing that they’ve never actually worked on a school project before. "Wait, so you've been ignoring me?" Dongho splutters.

"Let me guess, you didn't notice," Jonghyun says drily before leaning over to rap Dongho on the head.

"Ouch! And it's not my - you're asleep half the time anyway," Dongho finishes weakly, already making plans for retribution. He’s almost but not quite mad at Jonghyun for some reason.

"Yeah well, I'm not the one who needs a hundred alarms every morning," Jonghyun grumbles back.

They bicker all the way back home and well through practice; Minki eventually puts an end to it by knocking both their heads together sharply and telling them to shut up.

(And Dongho isn’t about to disobey. He’s learned the hard way that Minki is the one trainee he never wants to cross.)


	4. Polar Opposites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Baekho is clingy and JR doesn't quite know what to make of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by these images of [Baekho](http://i.imgur.com/6mPfcLq.jpg) [leaning on](http://i.imgur.com/guR4107.jpg) [JR](https://imgur.com/6iM0nfq) when they were younger.

1\. The first time Dongho does it, Jonghyun is flustered. The trainees are lazing around watching a movie in the common room after practice. Dongho had been held behind by the dance instructor again and the couches are full of listless(sometimes snoozing) trainees when he walks in 35 minutes into the film. Dongho's favourite bean bag - big, black and squashy for all that its exterior is tattered - is already filled with Jihoon and Minki. There's no way he'll manage to make those two move tonight.

Jonghyun can see Dongho's about to turn around and leave so he sighs inwardly and waves a hand at him. Practice had been grueling and it hurts to move but he clambers to the side anyway. Movie night is so rare these days that it would be a shame for one of them to miss it - and he knows that Dongho's had the roughest night out of all the trainees. 

Dongho slides into one side of the armchair without a word and wiggles around - Jonghyun's preferred perch is long, covered in blue faux leather, and too narrow to be really be called an armchair. Jonghyun thinks it's perfect to sprawl on while gaming (and he rarely has to fight anyone for it).

Midway through the movie (Jonghyun's already played through three levels of his latest mobile game fixation), Jonghyun shifts and realizes there's a brush of curly black hair tickling his cheek. Dongho’s head is resting on his shoulder but he isn’t asleep, his eyes are open and gleaming a soft amber in the reflected light, and they flick upwards to meet Jonghyun’s gaze. Jonghyun looks away first, it’s always a little disconcerting to stare right into Dongho’s eyes and it’s even more unnerving when he’s this close.

“Do you want me to move?”

“I don’t mind,” he says. This isn't obstructing his gameplay and if Dongho’s tired, it makes sense to lend him a shoulder.

* * *

 

2\. They’re mid-way through a photoshoot (JR doesn’t remember dates anymore, only the gaps they have between schedules) when the cameramen stops abruptly and goes to the back. From the whispered conversation, JR makes out that there’s some issue with the lighting.

The staff start moving all around them and start re-arranging the props. JR can’t keep his eyes open and he feels, rather than sees, Baekho dropping his head onto JR’s shoulder with a sigh. JR is barely able to keep himself on his feet with the added weight but he can’t bring himself to shove the other off - Baekho only gets like this when a lack of sleep has broken down his walls.

He debates internally with himself and compromises in the end by tipping his head onto Baekho’s, making the other take some of his weight, and relaxes even more when Baekho braces an arm around him with a tired grumble to relieve some of the strain.

JR only realizes he’s dozed off when he finds Baekho prodding him on the cheek, an amused look in his eyes. Somehow they’ve swapped poses and he’s the one leaning on Baekho’s shoulder now.

“The shoot’s about to re-start,” Baekho mock-whispers. “They delivered more lights,” he gestures behind and JR blinks in disbelief. Surely, he hadn’t been asleep for _that_ long. He abruptly realizes that the other members are picking themselves off a nearby couch and ambling over to them and his neck is incredibly sore - too sore for a catnap of mere minutes.

“How long have we been standing here for?” JR shakes his head in exasperation. Sometimes he really can’t understand how Baekho’s mind works. Why were they standing instead of at least sitting?

“Twenty minutes. I didn’t want to wake you since you looked really sleepy before,” Baekho informs him - he’s looking away from JR but his rapidly pinking ears give away his embarrassment.

“We’re _all_ sleepy. I think the last time we slept for more than a car ride was two days ago.”

It’s been a dizzying two days. They’ve been moved from schedule to schedule with no time to catch their breaths since they touched down in Tokyo two mornings ago (or was it three). But JR prefers this; he’d rather be working than be stuck as a trainee practicing the same routine for the umpteenth time (or so he tells himself).

“Yeah, but you were the only one who was sleep-walking,” Baekho says indignantly.

“Was not!”

“You were! Zombie JR,” Baekho smirks at him now.

JR debates whether to prolong this when Aron solves the problem for him. “Baekho, do you even know how to spell zombie?” Aron quips, his eyes dancing with mischief.

“Of course I do!” Baekho retorts.

“In English?”

“I - it’s a Korean word.”

“Nuh uh. It’s in English.”

JR just shakes his head, Aron’s clearly messing with Baekho: _everyone_ knows zombie is a Korean word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real names - pre-debut setting  
> Stage names - post debut setting


	5. In memory I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On death, grief and regrets. Baekho x JR H/C.

1.

For some reason, it only happens when he’s back home in Seoul (not in Aewol which sometimes seems like a fever dream).

If he closes his eyes, Dongho can still see a sea of never-ending pink lights - in the darkness of the concert stadium between song sets, with his in-ears plugged in and muffling all sound, they’d reminded him of a giant school of fluorescent jellyfish he’d seen as a child. He’d never imagined he would see a more beautiful sight.

It had been a heady feeling to be onstage surrounded by screaming, cheering and most of all loving fans. But it leaves him unsteady now, like he’s crashing following too many cups of strong black Americano, and oddly bereft.

When the tears start, it’s not the ocean that he’s remembering but a muggy summer day on Jeju. His arms had been aching from helping with the greenhouse harvest and he’d slipped off a ladder only to be caught gently and put upright.

It’s not the exact catch that he recalls, nor even the fall, it’s a weathered, leathery hand brushing over his head with a solemn reprimand that _Dongho_ _-yah, what will I do if you get hurt_? It’s the remembrance, sudden and painful in its intensity, that he had been loved without a doubt by a near-stranger - one of his grandfather’s many cousins - that makes his chest tighten.

He’d forgotten over the years that before he’d traded Aewol for Seoul, before absence had made him awkward with unfamiliarity, before he’d been Baekho of Nu’est (not tall enough, not good-looking enough, not thin enough, not pulling his weight enough, not good enough of an idol), he’d been cherished dearly and so unconditionally.

It’s not the memory itself in the end: it’s the fact that he’d forgotten that gets to him. 

* * *

2. 

He’s not sure if he’s thankful that it’s Jonghyun who finds him.

Minki would have flopped over his bed and stayed the night, trusting his presence to do what he couldn’t with words. Aron would have distracted him with bad jokes while brushing his own tears aside.

Jonghyun finds him a shivering mess in front of a composition sheet - it’s ruined beyond salvation, filled with illegible scratch marks, the ink splotched and blurred, and Dongho can’t find it in himself to care - he refuses to let Dongho hide away, pries away the hand that goes up over his face and draws him into a loose hug.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

They’ve done this far too often for Dongho's liking. It’s their dance between the complicated ways in which they both care for each other: Dongho rarely says a word and Jonghyun never asks twice. They are too alike in the worst of ways, both too proud and far too insecure.

But Dongho finds himself clinging to Jonghyun as hard as he can this time around. And it’s fear that forces words out of his mouth at last. He doesn’t want to have regrets when it comes to Jonghyun. He doesn't want this moment to haunt him when he loses Jonghyun as well someday.

“I don’t know why I’m crying,” he spits out at last, and it comes out angrier than he’d envisioned. “I barely knew him. I didn’t know -” a sob breaks through despite his best efforts. “I had no idea how sick he was,” he trails away.

Jonghyun says nothing for a long moment but his fingers start twining through the hair at the nape of Dongho's neck; they are so gentle that Dongho can hardly feel them and he wonders abruptly why he’s always leaned away from this. Open affection from Jonghyun has always inexplicably embarrassed him. 

“You must have loved him,” Jonghyun says.

(Jonghyun always has so much unquestioning faith in the rest of them and Dongho thinks this might be why he hates him sometimes; he can never live up to the other’s expectations.)

“I don’t know why he left everything to us. I can’t take up the business,“ Dongho fights down a fresh sob.

Jonghyun's fingers still for a second. “He must have loved you a lot.”

“I haven’t spoken more than a sentence to him since I left for Seoul. He lived down the road and he looked after my brother and me for years,” Dongho is shaking again now as the confession spills out of him along with shameful tears.

“Jonghyun - “ he starts but struggles to say anything more. This time it’s Jonghyun who wraps his arms around Dongho tightly; Dongho clutches back and feels as though he’ll fall to pieces if Jonghyun lets go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In memory of a grandparent I never really knew.


	6. In memory II

1.

When Baekho comes to again, there’s a finger poking him on the cheek insistently.

“If you don’t get up in the next five minutes, I will feed bread to your fish.” JR sounds completely serious but it’s hardly a threat when he still has his arms around Baekho.

Baekho squawks for effect out of habit anyway and grimaces when his throat clamps up.

“Water?”

JR just huffs, “Do I look like Minhyun? Get it yourself.”

Baekho gives JR his most injured look. “Please,” he croaks out but JR is unimpressed.

“Get up! We need to eat and,“ JR wrinkles his nose, “You need a shower. What did you do, run in and out of the shower stall at the stadium?”

“I showered properly!” 

There’s a knock on the door at that. “What are you two doing? The food’s arrived.”

It’s Ren and he sounds annoyed enough that Baekho and JR trade wide-eyed looks.

JR pushes him out the door before he can protest and Baekho barrels right into Ren, flails around and somehow winds up tangling all three of them in a mess that lands on the floor. 

A camera flashes and Baekho catches a glimpse of Aron running away, which just sets him off into a fit of giggles.

“Don’t you dare post anything up! We look horrible!” Ren sprints after him shouting frantically.

“Nobody cares!” Aron yells back as just as he comes back around through the hallway.

Baekho attempts a getaway but JR is faster than him - he jumps, tackling both Baekho and Aron onto the sofa. Ren skids to a stop right in front of the sofa and wobbles for a second before collapsing over them anyway (just because he can).

JR wrestles his way free first and clambers to his feet laughing breathlessly; his hair is sticking to his forehead and his face is shiny with perspiration, but it’s a good look on him until he smirks in satisfaction. “And that’s why I’m the leader.”

Ren drops him with a well-aimed cushion.

* * *

 

2.

It’s close to sunrise when Manager Lee ambles out of his room. He looks around the house quizzically as he navigates to the kitchen - there are cushions, bedroom pillows, and even a battered Chucky doll littering the hallway - before shaking his head in fondness and exasperation when he spies his charges.

Lee is relatively new to Nu’est but he’s already learned in a short year that they’re _always_ _like this_.

He clicks a picture of the sprawl of limbs on the floor and contemplates uploading it while the coffee pot boils. He decides against it in the end - the boys have atrocious sleeping habits and the apartment looks like a hurricane has torn through it - their fanclub might have an aneurysm at the photo and Pledis would have his head for it.

Lee scrolls through his contacts instead and grins briefly before attaching the photo and sending it off. 

_To: Minhyun_

_Today 4:52am: This is what your puppies did to the house today._


	7. Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gratitude is not as simple as it once was for JR.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically fictional JR being too hard on himself D:

The stage lights are blinding and Jonghyun can barely make out the mass of neon pink handlights in front of him. His stage costume is sticking to him now, the material damp with cold sweat; it still smells like detergent and the scent is faint but sharp and cloyingly sweet enough to turn his stomach even now.

He knows he should be speaking to the fans but the never-ending sea of bobbing lights (and the shaking and screaming and crying) is making him even more nauseous.

Jonghyun steals small glances at Ren and Baekho to ground himself instead. Ren gives him a reassuring smile and it bolsters him for a moment; Baekho looks just as lost as he feels and Jonghyun has to tear his gaze away. He wonders for a hysterical moment if this is another cruel prank by Mnet. 

_Maybe it’s all a joke. Or perhaps I’m still only thirteen and all of this is a fever dream._

But the thank you speech had to come before everything else so Jonghyun tucks away the thought and tries to express the appropriate words and sentiments as best as he can.

_Let’s be thankful they’re letting us perform. Let’s be grateful we got a comeback at all. Let’s be humble. It's a miracle the four of us got to stay together this long._

The running mantra doesn't help. He’s far too used to saying thank you as an apology, too accustomed to preaching thankfulness for the small things, and using gratitude and humility to paper over regrets. It’s no wonder, then, that he doesn’t know how to be properly thankful for something like this.

An embarrassed flush crawls over him at the thought and steals into his words, making him stumble over them.

He holds onto the mike for as long as he can bear after that, fighting the urge to cry. There shouldn’t be tears now. It wouldn’t be right. He should have practiced this speech last night but he hadn't dared to dream.

(But this isn’t the dream after all. His delusions of grandeur have changed over the years, tempered by time and picked away at slowly by each failure. But in every single flight of fancy, there’d always been someone standing here between the yawning gap between Baekho and him.)

_Is this what we’ve been working for?_

He turns away at that to collect himself. None of them, neither the members smiling through their tears, nor the fans who have raised them up to such dizzying heights deserve this maudlin sadness or bitterness.

It’s not their fault that this is all Jonghyun can feel at the moment.

_________________________________________________________________________

They're back home eating a celebratory dinner of takeout on the company card (there will be other, bigger, celebrations in the days to come, but this one is just for them) when Jonghyun finally breaks down in apologies.

His eyes are dry when he opens them again but his throat feels raw and he’s on a sofa bed in the middle of a sprawl of vaguely recognisable limbs.

_I don't deserve this._

He must have said it out loud because Baekho huffs.

"Yes, you do. Stop that," Baekho snaps.

"I really don't," Jonghyun says again. Because it's true. If he'd believed in Nu'est a little more, if he'd believed in their fans a little more, if he hadn't pushed all of them so hard about joining the show -

"If you don't, then what about the rest of us? Are you saying we don't deserve this?"

"No, that's not -" Jonghyun can feel his eyes start to water traitorously again and bites down on a corner cheek to distract himself

Baekho grabs at his collar with two hands and Jonghyun braces himself for a hug or a headlock (he can never tell which is coming most of the time). He's mildly taken aback to find himself staring Baekho right in the face instead. Baekho’s nose is still pink and he looks young in that moment, so young that it makes Jonghyun ache for him.

"I don't know what's eating at you. But you know, after everything, I'd rather choose to be happy in this moment. Just for a bit, just for this first win with Nu'est W," Baekho says softly, his hands relaxing and wandering down to worry at the lint stuck to the shoulders of Jonghyun’s sweatshirt.

Jonghyun leans into the touch and blinks back his tears. "I couldn't keep us together," it hurts to admit it out loud.

"What are you even saying? We're still together. Fathead's just on a working vacation because he's an overachiever," Baekho says mock indignantly.

"And I don't care what anyone says, I'm not writing him into any of the songs he's missing. Especially not Where You At, it's always going to be a _Nu’est W_ song."

Ren laughs at that and snakes his arms around Jonghyun's waist. "He can share my lines if you don't write him in."

"Mine too," Aron chimes in sleepily. "You don't have to share yours."

Baekho splutters. "Yah, is this what I get for giving you all the lines?"

"Didn't you just dump all your lines on us because you're a lazy ass?" Ren throws an innocent look at Baekho.

"I did not!"

"You totally did," Aron informs him with a straight face, yelping when Baekho kicks him in the ankle. He clocks Ren on the chin by accident and Ren yells bloody murder before drawing them all into a scuffle.

Jonghyun retreats to a safe corner of the sofa but he finds a smile tugging at his mouth in spite of himself; it broadens into an outright grin when he catches their manager standing in the doorway looking confused, his hair flattened on one side

"Shouldn't all of you be sleeping?" the man gestures at him worriedly. "You have a magazine shoot in a few hours."

Jonghyun considers the squabbling boys for a long moment before answering, "You're right, I should do something."

He grabs a sofa cushion and lobs it at Baekho's head.

(Three on one is hardly fair but it's the only way to end this before their next schedule.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop ending these things with play fights. But I’m all out of ideas for fluff at the moment - that Nu’est first win video made me want to cry for them so hard.


	8. The White Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jieqiong is a force to be reckoned with from the day Dongho meets her. (Pledis fam drabble which also features mindreader!Siyeon and a smidgen of Seventeen.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist after AAA - it's really too cute to imagine tiny!Pinky and tough guy Dongho as this oddball pair of friends who confused the heck out of the other Pledis trainees.

There are fingerprints left on the glass doors by the time Dongho manages to pry them open enough to squeeze himself through. Dongho doesn’t pause to make a token effort at cleaning them; there are dozens of similar smudges decorating the edges of the frame, testament to how frequently the doors failed to open fully.

And Dongho is very, very late.

He’d been furious when he’d woken at half past nine to find the tiny room he shared with his team empty.

_So much for being a team._

But then he’d swung by the fridge after hitting the shower and found a note in Jonghyun’s untidy scrawl telling him to rest well and get over his cold. Dongho had scowled and decided to go to practice anyway.

He's faintly regretting it now. He still feels off from the fever he'd fought throughout the night and his stomach is flip-flopping in anxiety. The dance instructors were probably going to be mad at him. They were never exactly happy with Dongho to begin with (too stiff, too awkward, you're taking too long, stop wasting everyone's time). But this would be worse.

It isn't the first time he's woken up late, of course. It's not even the first time his team has ditched him like this. Jonghyun had once resorted to throwing cold water on him out of desperation but he'd just rolled around and gone back to sleep. In the water.

He's not even sure why it started. When he'd been younger, arriving late for kumdo practice or even for school would have been something unthinkable back in Aewol. (The answer, Dongho will surmise on a trip back to Jeju years down the road, is that Seoul has an entirely too efficient transport system that makes it far too easy to fall down a blackhole of staggered alarms and ten more minutes of sleep; Seoul is entirely unlike Aewol where being late for the once a morning bus down to the town hall means a two hour trek on foot to the gym or anywhere else worth visiting.)

But even Dongho's never been an entire three hours late to practice before.

He comes to a sudden stop right outside the practice studio, trepidation weighing him down.

Something small and hard rams into his back a second later and Dongho barely manages to sidestep a collision with the door; he regrets it when he witnesses a kid smack her forehead into the door knob with an alarmingly loud thud.

"Are you alright?" he peers at her gingerly, slightly glad to note that there aren't any tears in her eyes. He gingerly shifts the hand clapped to her forehead and winces at the rapidly purpling bruise that's visible between her fingers.

"Does that hurt?"

A pair of angry dark eyes set above a pair of pursed lips meet his, and for such a small child, she looks positively terrifying.

_Right, of course it hurts._

"Come on, let's get some ice on that," he tugs her to her feet gently. She pulls her hand out of his immediately and bends to pick up her bag, before reaching a small hand to the doorknob.

She’s probably a trainee on her way to practice too; he feels a little dumb for not figuring that out sooner. The fact that she's wandering around the building unattended should have been a giveaway.

(And that face, there were a lot of pretty faces around Pledis but this one would stand out in anyone's memory. She looked like a porcelain doll with her pale skin and sharp, perfectly proportioned features.)

He's about to let her be - there's a stubborn cast to her features that he recognizes - but there's an unsteadiness to her as she struggles with the doorknob with two hands.

A new trainee then. Or perhaps one who hadn't come in to practice in a few weeks.

(They'd changed the system recently. Keycard access has been required for the door for a few months now, ever since someone had barged in unannounced and caught a certain After School member with a certain manager. No one's quite sure who had caught them or even who the story originated with, but they accept it as the truth.)

It's the tears that decide him in the end: she's let go of the doorknob and is rubbing at her eyes in distress now. His brother had did the same thing as a kid, particularly whenever Dongho had caught him in a lie - confused and adorable had always worked on him and Dongho's never been good at resisting children to begin with.

"You need a key card for that," she looks up at the explanation, bottom lip stubbornly folded under her teeth, and narrows her eyes at him when he points at the card scanner beside the door.

She thrusts an open palm at him. Dongho's slightly offended by the imperious gesture but his concern for her wins out in the end.

"No, you need to ice that," he tells her in the sternest voice he can manage. She looks at him blankly.

"Ice," he mimes putting a compress to her forehead. "You might need to go to see a doctor actually, that looks pretty bad."

"Come on," he herds her gently down the hallway, all the way to the backroom that doubles as cafeteria, rec room, and a composition studio.

What _were_ they thinking letting a kid like this just wander around - she doesn't seem like she knows enough Korean to get by. (Dongho can still remember his first day alone in Seoul; he'd gotten miserably lost between the unfamiliar mode of transport and the headache that trying to parse the Seoul accent had given him - he'd been certain for a few terrifying hours that he'd never find his way out of the subway system to Pledis.)

There's ice in the fridge but she hisses dramatically when an ice cube makes contact with her forehead, eyes trained on him balefully. Dongho ends up sacrificing the shirt he'd been saving to wear after practice with an inward sigh - it's the only clean shirt he owns other than the tank top he'd worn here - but she still regards him and the bundle of ice he's offering with suspicion for a moment.

"It's supposed to help the pain," Dongho tells her to no avail.

She’s definitely a foreigner.

"Ice, no pain," he clumsily tries in English. But she just regards him warily from her perch on a sofa arm. All the fire has gone out of her now and she looks uncertain and small.

"Dongho," he tries starting over, tapping himself on the chest before pointing at her and turning his palms upward.

"Dono?" her eyebrows furrow.

"No, no. Dong. Ho. You?" he tries sketching a question mark in the air this time.

Her eyes light up at this and a rapid-fire series of sharp sounds pour from her lips. They're not quite unfamiliar -

"China?" he guess.

"Shanghai!" she corrects him with a blinding smile. He's not sure where that is, but he can't help returning the smile.

"Jeju," he offers in return before trying to sound out her name. She shakes her head impatiently and repeats her name again.

Somewhere between the fourth and fifth attempt at her name, he manages to get her to take the compress from him.

Eventually, she groans at a particularly mangled attempt at "Jieqiong" and socks him in the arm to his bemusement. It doesn't quite hurt (and it might have been deserved, Dongho's been getting her name incredibly wrong on purpose for a while now); her fist is tiny but it's bony enough to make an impression and he mock scowls at her, which just sets her off into a fit of giggles.

Dongho isn't quite sure how he's gone from a scary person to an object of amusement in the space of ten minutes but he’s a little glad about it.

The door bursts open in the next instant and the backroom floods with people; there's no sign of his team though, they must still be in practice.

"Pinky!" Siyeon comes in, a whirlwind of messy braids and high-pitched laughter, "I thought it was you! Weren't you only coming tomorrow?"

Pinky? Had she been pulling his leg after all?

He doesn't get to ask because the girls dissolve into an odd conversation that has a lot of pointing and waving and manages to be incredibly noisy despite a distinct lack of discernible words.

Siyeon looks over at him briefly after a moment and laughs. "Yes, Dongho's like that," she says out loud for his benefit.

"Like what?"

"Grumpy. And a pushover," she grins at him.

"Do you even understand each other?" he asks indignantly.

"Of course we can. I've known Pinky since before you entered the company," Siyeon retorts.

"So you're alright then ... Pinky?" Dongho gestures at her forehead. Siyeon follows his fingers and her eyes widen at the bruise that's developed above Pinky's right eye.

Pinky waves Siyeon off and shakes Dongho's makeshift compress at her, dissolving into another patter of unrecognisable words.

"She says it's alright, and thanks for the ice," Siyeon somehow translates for Pinky as Cheol walks through the door.

"Ah, that's good," Dongho sighs in relief and deftly sidesteps Cheol's attempts to put him in a headlock. He's not in the mood for roughhousing. He has no excuse to stay here anymore. It's time to face the music.

"I need to get to practice," he mutters.

"Practice? Yah, did you forget it's Friday?" Cheol raises an eyebrow at him.

Friday - Dongho's team would be at their vocal coach's house today, not in the dance studio. Between the cold meds and the blind panic Dongho had worked himself into, he'd manage to forget their schedule. He slumps back down into the couch beside Jihoon, his face burning with embarrassment.

Pinky glances from Dongho's head buried in his hands to the slight furrow on Seungcheol's stern face (there's concern there too but she misses it) before tugging insistently on Siyeon's arm to whisper something to her seriously. Siyeon maintains a grave expression but there's mischief dancing in her eyes when she turns to Cheol.

"Pinky says you shouldn't be mad at Dongho and everything's her fault. She'll kick you if you scold him."

Pinky nods furiously, her glare now trained on Cheol.

The absurdity of it all startles a laugh out of Dongho; some of it is amusement at the way Cheol plays along by throwing up his hands in defeat; some of it is out of sheer surprise at how protective this doll-faced little girl is of him; he continues laughing even when it winds up segueing into a coughing fit that has Jihoon bracing his shoulders in worry.

(It will take Dongho a while to realize it, but while Pinky is younger, in some ways, she's always been stronger than him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (^ and that's why Baekho needs to listen to JR more instead of being such a rebel all the time.) ^^;; I really feel like a fic about these two meeting as kids should be cuter than this but I gave up and published since this has been on my gdrive forever.


	9. Still Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dongho has never quite learned that not leaning back is a form of selfishness.

A hand ghosts down his back gently, a fleeting, almost caress that Dongho stubbornly doesn't lean into.

It's the third time this hour.

Dongho doesn't wonder why Jonghyun's suddenly allowing himself to find the smallest of excuses to lean over Dongho's shoulders, sling an arm around the waist, use Dongho as a prop for his head, or worst of all, pat him on the back.

He knows and on some level, he understands why. But he doesn't want to be coddled like a beloved child (a son) or treated like something to be pitied, not by Kim Jonghyun.

But they’re being watched more than ever now; almost everyone has a camera, a social media account and little respect for celebrities. (Dongho’s already learnt by now that becoming a celebrity back home, becoming famous in the everyone-knows-your-name way, means you lose a little of your humanity.)

So every time Jonghyun does it, Dongho suppresses the spike of anger that burns through him. If he doesn’t lean in, well, he doesn’t quite lean out either. And that’s what everyone sees (and the fangirls coo over).

His anger is fairly easy to douse on most days. All it usually takes is a reminder that Jonghyun is the person who’s held them together, the reason Nu’est still exists, and just like that it’s easy to breath again. (And when it can’t be doused, anger is still easy, if painful, to redirect inwards - if he’s angry after all, it’s really because he resents the reminder that he isn’t as strong as he should be, that all isn't right with their world.)

Some days though, it’s not anger but frustration that tears through him and threatens his precarious tightrope act.

Sometimes, it’s all he can do to make it a joke as he shrugs Jonghyun off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I set out to write fluff and it became this @_@. 
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter <3\. I was a little wary of writing about Pinky and Baekho because, amongst other things, I didn't want it to be taken as a fic shipping them at that age.


	10. Still Waters II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dongho’s crush on Jonghyun is old, weathered by time and the experience of living in each other’s pockets for a third of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Follows from the drabble in the last chapter.

It really starts on their first trip overseas as Nu'est W. They're all beset by a toxic mix of nerves and anticipation and being left to share a hotel room with Jonghyun only heightens it, driving Dongho to the balcony for a fresh breath of air.

_His crush on Jonghyun is old, weathered by time and the experience of living in each other’s pockets for a third of their lives. But for all that it's been locked away to be forgotten, sometimes when Jonghyun’s close, it roars to life like sparks of fire finally finding purchase in dry tinder. The dizzying, maddening jolt of want that courses through him at moments like this threatens to steal more than just his breath; it’s almost more than he can bear._

There's a sharp bite to the wind that chills him to the bone and reminds him winter isn't far off now. The seasons have changed without much notice, lost in the flurry of the last few months.

So much has changed that Dongho finds himself counting off things that have stayed the same: late nights spent rewriting fragments of songs again and again until Bumjoo snaps at him for wasting time before tempering it with a brusque head ruffle; the fool’s gold strength of caffeine that leaves him gritty-eyed from a lack of sleep; practices that run so long he comes out of them dazed, unsure about anything other than the choreography; the double-edged exhilaration of hitting the painful glory notes in the last of a six song set; and a protein diet that leaves him with a constant gnaw of hunger.

When Dongho stops to think, he often feels like he’s on the edge of a precipice, leaning over slightly to peer at the crashing waves below with no regard for the wind tugging at his clothes and urging him forward, more forward than he wants to be. He's tempted to follow it at times. Most days though, it's just white noise, like everything that isn't work.

 

* * *

 

 

"It’s cold," Jonghyun says when he joins Dongho on the balcony; the hands that he runs across Dongho's shoulders are damp and they leave a trail of goose pimples in their wake. There's just enough light filtering through the doorway to illuminate Jonghyun's face: the flush to his cheeks from the cold, his tired but kind eyes, and reddened bottom lip - a sure sign that he's been worrying at it in anxiety.

“You wouldn't be so cold if you'd used a towel," Dongho grumbles and inches away, trying to fight back a shiver.

"I dried off."

"Suit yourself. But you're going to catch a cough at this rate, don't say I didn't warn you," Dongho huffs. He's not sure what Jonghyun is doing out here, his hair still dripping from his shower and eyes glassy with fatigue.

"When did you change your name to Hwang Minhyun?" Jonghyun darts a glance at him with a slight smirk but stammers over the name, the playful glint in his eyes fading for a moment.

The question knocks the breath out of Dongho. They all still have moments when they find themselves turning around to share a laugh with an empty pocket of space. Dongho hasn’t quite stopped telling speakers to shut up every time he hears Minhyun’s voice.

He barely draws the next breath either - there's no warning before he finds himself flailing for balance under the weight of the small, wet form that’s suddenly draped over his shoulders.

Dongho curses in surprise as he fights to right himself.

"Jonghyun!"

Jonghyun shifts a little but stays plastered against Dongho like a coat two sizes too small, his face tucked against Dongho's neck. He rearranges himself until he’s able to loll his head on one broad shoulder.

"I'm a magnet," Jonghyun explains sleepily.

"You're a crazy person, that's what you are," Dongho scoffs.

"No, we're both magnets," Jonghyun mutters somewhere to his right.

Dongho lets out an aggrieved exhale through pursed lips and then counts to fifty, feigning a sudden fascination with the night sky - the stars are a little strange here.

He’d forgotten why it was never a good idea to get stuck sharing a room with the other. Jonghyun only ever allows himself to get this silly when he’s over-tired and around familiar faces. Or when he's attempting to cheer someone up.

And when he does get into a whimsical mood, Jonghyun can be almost incomprehensible. Dongho's never quite learned how to deal with him like this, not without one of the others around as a buffer.

(What seems like a lifetime ago, this might have resulted in bruised egos, a week of wary, side along looks, and one of the others playing mediator. Not now. They live in the same apartment, call each other by familiar names, and play the same games. But they’re different; they've been tempered for better and worse.)

Dongho stays silent, fixating on the way his breath condenses and disappears with the wind. He wishes he could follow suit. The only upside to this situation for him is the way Jonghyun’s exhalations warm the back of his neck, warding off the cold and sending a pleasant tingle down his spine.

Jonghyun yawns and Dongho wonders if he should disentangle himself and make a beeline for the bath. If he doesn’t look, he’d avoid the silver of hurt he knows he'll find in Jonghyun's eyes, swiftly hidden but there all the same for anyone who knows him.

But Hwang Minhyun is far from the only subject the pair of them tiptoe around. Their dance is much older and Dongho is suddenly, fiercely, weary of it. (He’s tried running but it hasn’t worked.)

Jonghyun cracks another yawn.

“Yah, don’t you dare fall asleep on me!” Dongho threatens.

There’s no response so he wriggles, trying to break Jonghyun’s hold enough to turn his head. Jonghyun breathes slow and deep, like someone drifting away to sleep. But Dongho finds himself being watched from under nearly closed eyelids with a fondness that makes his ears burn and his heart ache a little.

This close, he can count the moles and faint blemishes peppering Jonghyun’s face; his eyes lingers on the red rawness of those bitten lips. He doesn’t exactly know what had gotten Jonghyun so worked up earlier - but asking would just invite Jonghyun to turn the question back around. And really, Dongho could guess at the dozen reasons why. They’re not on land, not yet, and the tides can still turn against them. There’s no need to get into it, not when Jonghyun’s lips are curled upwards in contentment like this.

It’s a selfish thought, but if he huddles a bit closer for the warmth and happens to brush a cheek against Jonghyun’s lips, it would be an accident. There’s no one around to say otherwise.

He reaches out with slightly hesitant fingers to bop Jonghyun on the nose instead. Jonghyun goes cross eyed, looking comical enough that Dongho can’t help laughing - once it starts it tickles his throat and bubbles out of him gleefully.

He can’t help doing it again and Jonghyun’s face scrunches up in annoyance. “Stop it, I’m awake,” Jonghyun whines before burying himself in Dongho’s shaking shoulders.

Dongho resorts to poking him on the cheek before yelping when Jonghyun twists a nipple sharply in retaliation. He stares at Jonghyun in betrayal.

“I told you to stop,” Jonghyun tells Dongho smugly; he’s always been downright _ruthless_ when he’s at play. Dongho thinks that he must save all his meanness for the members since he knows they’ll forgive him. (It’s what Dongho does after all.)

“And I told you to get off me!” Dongho retorts indignantly.

“I can’t. We’re stuck together,” Jonghyun says cheerfully. He’s back to clinging like a limpet now.

Dongho doesn’t manage to shake Jonghyun off and ends up piggybacking him into the room to the other’s great delight, muttering all the while under his breath about crazy leaders from outer space. Jonghyun eventually drifts off to a well-deserved sleep and Dongho disentangles himself gingerly, exaggeratedly cautious like he'd been as a child sneaking into the kitchen past midnight for a snack.

It’s only when Dongho has been standing under the shower for what feels like forever, temperature turned up as hot as he can bear, that he realizes he feels like he can draw a full breath again. The tightness in his chest has eased.

 

* * *

 

_If he's being honest, it really started years back. On a night a little like this, cold enough to ground the group in their drafty dorm, Jonghyun had kissed him against the kitchen counter out of curiosity - hard, sloppy, and clumsy._

_For that one moment his world had been narrowed to nothing but Jonghyun: the slightly rough, questing lips on his, their aggressiveness making his heart pound unevenly; the teeth grazing him hard enough he almost expects to taste blood; the burn of cheap convenience store beer on his tongue; the fingers stroking the arch of his neck and the shell of his right ear, an oddly gentle counterpoint to the grip on his jaw._

_But then Minki had yelled for them to hurry up with the plates, and when Jonghyun had drawn back, he’d looked away with something a lot like recrimination darkening his expression._

_Dongho's always wondered if Jonghyun still regrets it; if he’s ever spared a moment to think about that moment, turned it over in his mind until he’s unsure what’s real and imagined._

_They’ve never talked about it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is really four drabbles taped together; and a lot of this was too unhappy at first so it got re-written with inspiration from Love Record. Hopefully, it's still coherent. I couldn't bear to abandon it since I finally worked up to a kiss scene *throws confetti*.


	11. Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonghyun figures things out with little time to spare. (Written for the prompt "words".)

I.

They tell Jonghyun that he has a gift for writing rap verses.

Jonghyun thinks to himself that they’re wrong. It’s not that he’s good with words. It’s just that it’s a relief to put the things that he can’t quite say down on paper, the old-fashioned way. At times, Jonghyun can almost, but not quite, taste lead on his tongue from the chewed off ends of his favourite pencil and hear the drone of his elementary teacher’s voice; he can pretend this is just a hobby instead of a job.

Jonghyun isn’t sure it’s a gift either.

Some days things just keep haunting him; sometimes it isn’t enough to retreat into the lives of two-dimensional characters with their plotted-out endings and alien worries; and on those days, he writes. He censors it all carefully of course. But most of his best works come from those sleepless nights when his thoughts all but chase him to his worn out wooden desk.

It would be easier if he could just write to his members. But even then, when he does find the time and the right frame of mind to pen letters to them, he finds himself going over each word until the words end up being stale, long past all usefulness.

It frustrates him to no end in those early days as Nu’est. He’s sure if he could only find the right words, if only what he felt could somehow be transformed into coherent sentences - they’d all be a little less resentful of him. (He knows all the reasons why he needs to play the leader instead. But sometimes he just wants, more than anything, to be silly with Minki and Minhyun, play pranks with Dongho, or crawl into Aron’s lap at the end of a long hard day.)

He grows into his role with time, shapes himself around what _needs to be said_ and _has to be done_ , and surprises himself one day with the thought that he’s found a sweet spot between uncompromising leader and caring friend.

But there are still occasions when he finds himself tongue-tied and flat-footed on unfamiliar terrain. It happens the most with Dongho. He’s not quite sure why.

* * *

II.

Jonghyun finds Dongho sitting in the corner of a practice room with his legs splayed out and sweat dampened curls sticking to his forehead. Dongho’s head leaves a damp spot on the grey walls when he moves to acknowledge Jonghyun and Jonghyun drops his hand, thinking better of his urge to ruffle Dongho’s curls.

“You should sleep,” Jonghyun says but slides down next to Dongho anyway; Dongho moves closer, bumping their shoulders together in a way that’s heartbreakingly familiar.

“I don’t think I can,” Dongho confesses, his voice doesn’t quiver but the words come out high and a little breathless, nothing like the deeper tones he’s adopted with age.

_Are you afraid?_

Jonghyun doesn’t have to ask. There’s a quiet, painful resignation written across the lines of Dongho’s body that Jonghyun almost can’t bear to face; it’s been there since they first stepped into the Produce 101 audition rooms all those months ago.

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Jonghyun says. And he wants to believe his words, he really does.

“You can do it, you know,” Jonghyun blurts out and Dongho huffs.

“I mean it,” he insists, catching Dongho’s eyes and holding his gaze until Dongho looks away and scratches at the bridge of his nose in a show of studied nonchalance.

“You say that like it’s supposed to be a comfort. It’s not,” Dongho says mulishly.

“It’s not meant to be a comfort,” Jonghyun retorts. “You’ll make it to the Top 11 tomorrow. If you try.” _If you want it_.

“I could say the same about you,” Dongho mutters and Jonghyun’s breath stutters involuntarily. “Stop fighting it,” Dongho tells him somberly. “If it’s going to be one of us, it should be you.”

Jonghyun doesn’t like the sound of that. It sounds a little too much like defeat to him. He’d rather dream of a fairytale ending where all four of them land in the Top 11.

(The problem is that there are _five of them_. And Jonghyun can't shake the feverish, acute awareness that this is the last leg of what’s likely to be their last race together. He can't stop feeling like he's a captain abandoning ship instead of staying the course.)

“You’re just saying that because you’ll miss Minhyun,” he tries for a joke but it comes out slightly bitter.

“Yah, you - “ Dongho shakes his head.

“You’d miss him,” Jonghyun says with certainty. _More than me_ _at any rate_.

“Of course I would,” Dongho sighs, his shoulders drooping. “I’d miss everything,” he says, resting his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder comfortably without a word, as though they’d done this a million times before.

They had.

There’s a lump in Jonghyun’s throat when he thinks about all the afternoons he’d spent fidgeting uncomfortably against the weight of Dongho’s head against his shoulders on the way home from school. He’d never had the heart to shrug Dongho off, not even when it had hindered his gameplay.

In what seems like a different lifetime now, Nu’est had thought nothing about sneaking into each other’s beds or draping themselves across available shoulders, backs, and laps, or whatever could be used as a convenient resting place. They’d been a little like a litter of kittens left out in the cold, huddling together because they had no one else to depend on for warmth and affection.

Jonghyun takes a deep breath and swallows. This isn’t the time or the place. Tomorrow he could lick his wounds to his heart’s content, but tonight he needed to be -

His thoughts stutter to a stop at the feel of Dongho’s fingers sliding against his jaw to curl around the back of his head, guiding their faces close together.

Jonghyun is relieved when all Dongho does is knock their foreheads together with a painful clack. “We’ll be alright,” Dongho says quietly with a certainty he can't possibly feel, and despite the way his pulse is hammering against his chest, this is what Jonghyun has really wanted to hear. Perhaps he’d come out here tonight for himself after all.

He is startlingly disappointed when Dongho lets go.

( _Oh_ , Jonghyun thinks in a daze, realization dawning on him with a sudden, painful clarity. _Oh_. This is why he’s been, maybe, a little afraid of what Dongho thinks of him. 

Of course he’d only figure it out when he’s all out of time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not sure why I'm writing Produce101 angst a year on. But that's where this wanted to go.


	12. Lost in a crowd of one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonghyun's made a bit of a habit out of picking Dongho up at the airport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gen fluff inspired by Jonghyun's recent mention that he used to pick Dongho up from the airport when they were younger. Set somewhere around July - Aug 2017 and Jan - Feb 2010.

Jonghyun slouched into his seat, obstinately refusing to fidget and pull his nondescript black cap down whenever anyone so much as breathed in his direction.

It was hard to focus between the weariness weighing his limbs down, the unfamiliar anxiety thrumming through his veins whenever anyone touting telephoto lenses walked past, and the careful eye he had to keep on the arrivals board. Even so, the moment he got stuck, he found himself sinking into the intricacies of the game. If only he could time things just so --

Someone stepped on his feet and he watched in dismay as his little pink avatar dived to her death, but any frustration he might have felt at the large black GAME OVER letters blaring up at him fell away the moment he looked up. The form in front of him was thin and somber, swathed in a large gray hoodie and a black face mask. But the giant, ugly blue sneakers and the amber brown eyes that flicked to meet his gaze for briefest of moments were unmistakably Dongho's.

"I knew I'd find you doing this," Dongho huffed wearily. "I don't know why you insisted on meeting me at the airport. Have you been sleeping at all? You look like crap."

Jonghyun swallowed a retort - Dongho really had no business lecturing anyone on sleep habits. He settled for dislodging Dongho's grip on his suitcase and prodding him forward.

He didn't think he could explain why he was here. But when their manager had mentioned offhandedly that Dongho was finally returning to the dorm this weekend, Jonghyun had stubbornly insisted on meeting Dongho at the airport despite everyone advising him otherwise.

(If anything, they'd just made him more stubborn. There were a lot of things Jonghyun could give up for fame, but he refused to live in fear of the cameras or let it dictate his life.)

They were quietly quibbling over where to have lunch - Dongho wanted seafood since Minki wasn't around, Jonghyun just wanted to eat somewhere close to the airport - when a memory arose unbidden and he smirked at Dongho mischievously.

"What?" Dongho gave him a blank look.

"That’s why I had to come," Jonghyun pointed at the neon sign leading to the train station. Dongho didn't say anything but Jonghyun could tell from the embarrassment in Dongho’s eyes that he was probably recalling the same memory.

_\----_

_They'd been fourteen when they'd first met and Dongho had been intimidating even at that age - with shoulders that went on forever, a blunt way of speech that could leave Jonghyun smarting for hours, and a veneer of self-confidence that never wavered, not even when Dongho was being reprimanded by the dance instructor; it made Jonghyun feel off-kilter at times. Dongho had seemed far too similar to the troublemakers and stereotypical jocks that Jonghyun had grown used to ducking in school hallways for his comfort._

_It hadn't helped that Dongho had warmed far faster to Minki, brightening whenever Minki entered their shared living space and making his preference for Minki easily known._

_(Jonghyun had been yet to learn that it wasn't_ him _. It was just one of the inevitabilities of life that_ everyone _warmed to Minki faster. It was something akin to a superpower. Jonghyun himself had barely known Choi Minki for all of a week before he’d begun treating Minki like the younger brother he'd always wanted.)_

_The last thing that Jonghyun had expected was to receive a phone call from Dongho on a wintry Sunday afternoon, interrupting the peace he’d been revelling in with nobody but the neighbour’s cat around - the cat had learned long ago that Jonghyun could be guilted into sharing food._

_"I don't know how to get back," Dongho had confessed._

_"Can’t you flag a cab?"_

_"I don't have the fare," a sniffle broke through Dongho's words._

_"I don't have enough for the fare either," Jonghyun cast a look around the empty dorm in distress. The rest of the trainees were still away on vacation and their agency wasn’t open today._

_"I'll come get you," Jonghyun promised on a whim._

_He started second-guessing himself and paused just a minute out the door, moving again to stop the cat from entangling itself around its legs and shoo it back home. The trip to the airport was going to eat into his budget for the next week and if he had to admit it to himself, he wasn’t particularly keen on being with Dongho alone._

_But Jonghyun could remember the first time he'd waved goodbye to his father and had to make the trek to the dorm alone - he'd made the journey back in somewhat of a daze, his head down and concentrating on his Gameboy, too scared to meet anyone's eyes on the subway. Seoul was so very large and alien; and no one would have wondered where he'd gone if he'd gotten lost, not for hours._

_And he’d promised._

_He felt doubly guilty when he clambered up the train station steps an hour later, taking them two at a time out of worry, and Dongho had looked up -- his eyes alarmingly filling with tears the moment they locked gazes._

_“It's okay, I’ll show you the way,” he’d comforted, patting Dongho on the back awkwardly, not quite sure what to do when faced with tears. He supposed it must have been relief at the sight of a familiar face._

_“Is your younger brother alright?” An elderly woman enquired in worry._

_“Ahh - “ Jonghyun floundered for a moment at the unexpected address before plastering on a smile to reassure her, hiding a wince at the way Dongho's grip on his elbow tightened._

_“He’ll be fine, he just got a little worried because I was late, right?” Jonghyun threw a meaningful look at Dongho who nodded obediently, pressing closer to Jonghyun while wiping at his face with his free hand._

_“You should look out for him better,” She chided gently, and Jonghyun agreed inwardly - whose bright idea had it been to make Dongho journey from the airport to the dorm alone?_

_“Here, drink some of this if you will, I have to go,” She placed a bottle of Yakult on the bench beside Dongho before leaving._

_Jonghyun reached out and grabbed Dongho’s wrist before he could open it._

_“No, you don't know what's in there.”_

_“It's Yakult!”_

_“You don't know what could be in there. Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to accept things from strangers?”_

_Dongho deflated for a moment. “Why did you get to be the hyung anyway? We're the same age,” He muttered sullenly._

_Jonghyun threw him an incredulous look, his gaze flitting from Dongho’s blotchy face to the white-knuckled grip Dongho had on the gathers of his striped sweater. Dongho's steps faltered for a moment, his shoulders drooping in embarrassment._

_“I’m a whole month older. Besides, I’ll come pick you up every time so long as you call me hyung,” Jonghyun needled with a smirk while prodding Dongho onwards, towards the train platform that would take them home._

_Dongho just stuck his tongue out at Jonghyun childishly._

_\------_

"I'm not fourteen anymore," Dongho groused, following Jonghyun into the small cafe he'd gone ahead and wheeled Dongho's bag into.

"Still a crybaby though," Jonghyun teased. "The biggest crybaby in the world."

"No, that's Minhyun's title now," Dongho retorted. The corners of his mouth turned down for a moment.

Maybe it was because someone had to say the words Minhyun wasn't around to say. _Someone_ had to erase that god awful hollowness about Dongho. But Jonghyun found himself bumping Dongho’s shoulders right as they sat down. "I’ll always come get you if you need me to," Jonghyun said.

“After all, it really wouldn't do to have our main vocalist be spotted crying in the train station like a kid who's lost his way,” Jonghyun finished impishly. He let out a yelp at the half-hearted smack Dongho aimed at his direction.

(It was worth the hint of a smile that broke across Dongho's face for an instant.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did Jbaek become such a fluffy ship @____@.


End file.
